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Concise Annotated Bibliography

For a class, I wrote a 7-page annotated bibliography and presented a 7-minute presentation on role-plays in task-based instruction, which is one of my areas of interest for research.

The most useful bit of information I got from this research was that the preferred term in this area is "information gap task" as opposed to "role-play" or "simulation." The term "role-play" reminds most educators about the suggestopedia method or drama (which many instructors rule out as time-consuming and chaotic), so it often does not get much respect in second language education research. Information gap tasks can be tied easily to task-based instruction, which is a more recent and widely used approach to language teaching than suggestopedia.

Another great find was Dr. Teresa Pica from the University of Pennsylvania. She appears to be the leading expert in information gap tasks and would be a very valuable resource if I decide to do my dissertation on this topic. If I go ahead with this research, I intend to look into how cultural backgrounds can affect the outcome of given information gap tasks. Therefore my interest lies in the pragmatics of task-based instruction.

I also learned how my teaching philosophy fits into the field of second language acquisition. It seems that I am a social constructivist based on the Lainema article I referred to in the presentation. I would have to do more research into social constructivism to realize how much of the movement I agree with. I have also reconfirmed my fondness for experiential learning, which doesn't get much respect in education research.

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